The type of single-use "fire-and-forget" rocket launcher found in a central Queensland town tip and handed into police this morning is used by two overseas defence forces that recently underwent live-fire exercises at a nearby army training area. The Department of Defence's acting director-general of communications, Colonel Pup Elliott, told smh.com.au the weapon was not Australian Defence Force ordnance. "I can tell you from the photo straight away it's not one of ours, it's not one of the weapons we use in our inventory." It is believed the weapon came from the Shoalwater military training area, a short distance from the town of Yeppoon, near Rockhampton, where the tip was located. Colonel Elliott said the weapon could be traced to an overseas force that recently used the training area. "We've certainly had soldiers from Singapore, we've had US Marines and [US Army] and I think they all have it in their inventory.... http://www.smh.com.au

When U.S. forces killed the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Zarqawi, six months ago in a village near here, they hoped security would improve in this strategic province just north of Baghdad.Instead, security has collapsed in Diyala province, which now ranks as one of Iraq's most troubled regions. Insurgent attacks have more than doubled in the last year. Violence has devastated the provincial police force and brought reconstruction to a virtual standstill.Assassinations have claimed the lives of mayors, tribal chieftains, police officials and judges, including a Shiite Muslim member of the provincial council who was killed Tuesday. Many government officials here sleep on cots in their offices because driving home is too dangerous.And Iraqi security forces have been implicated in so many abuses that the U.S. commander here recently gave his Iraqi counterpart an angry lecture, likening the Iraqi troops to an "undisciplined rabble."...http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-baqubah3jan03,0,1829627.story

Setting up what could become the first showdown between the Bush administration and the new Democratic Congress, the Justice Department has refused to turn over two secret documents, describing the CIA's detention and interrogation policies for suspected terrorists, to the incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who asked for the documents in November, said Tuesday that the department's response suggested that President Bush's promise to work with the new Congress "may have been only political lip service." Leahy has said he might use subpoenas to get the material. "It is disappointing that the Department of Justice and the White House have squandered another opportunity to work cooperatively with Congress," he said Tuesday in a statement."The department's decision to brush off my request for information about the administration's troubling interrogation policies is not the constructive step toward bipartisanship that I had ...http://www.latimes.com/la-na-leahy3jan03,0,4305283.story

The phone camera footage of Saddam Hussein's execution may prove to be the most controversial media disclosure from Iraq since snapshots of US guards abusing prisoners inside Abu Ghraib were published in 2004. While those pictures were revealed in the US media, the Saddam video appears to have been a purely Iraqi affair. As foreign news organisations downloaded it from the internet, it was already being swapped among ordinary Iraqis on their mobile phones. The Iraqi government's own, edited version, was undermined by the ugly audio of the shouted sectarian Shia slogans. The mobile phone, that symbol of freedom and independence, had come into its own in Iraq in the most dramatic way. For many outsiders, one of the most graphic horrors of the Iraqi conflict has been the posting of beheading videos on the internet but, within the country, interactive communications rest on the phone, not the web. Just 0.1% of a population of nearly 27 million has web access, according to a ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6225337.stm

An Israeli woman jailed for three years for aiding Palestinian militants has been freed nearly a year early. Tali Fahima, 30, was the first Israeli jailed for "collaboration". She admitted the charge in a plea deal in which she avoided treason charges. The legal assistant had struck up a friendship with a Palestinian militant leader and visited him several times in the West Bank town of Jenin. Her release for good conduct comes with restrictions, prison officials said. "The prison service release committee this morning approved the early release of Tali Fahima," spokeswoman Orit Steltzer said. She is banned from leaving the country, contacting foreign agents or entering the Palestinian-controlled areas in the occupied West Bank, Ms Steltzer said. Speaking to supporters who gathered to see her release, Ms Fahima said: "I don't regret anything, and I will continue to work against the occupation and for peace."...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6227289.stm

Mexico is sending more than 3,000 soldiers and police to the northern border city of Tijuana to help fight drug trafficking and gang violence. The troops will hunt suspected traffickers, patrol the coast and man checkpoints, a senior official said. The city, across the border from San Diego in California, is a major entry point for drugs into the US. It has been hit by violence between rival drug gangs, with more than 300 killings in 2006. The new president, Felipe Calderon, who was sworn in last month, has vowed to curb drug-related violence. 'Hostage to crime' Interior Minister Francisco Ramirez Acuna said the Tijuana force would be backed by 28 boats, 21 planes and nine helicopters. "We will carry out all the necessary actions to retake every region of national territory," he said. "We will not allow any state to be a hostage of drug traffickers or organised crime." ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6226865.stm